5 ms·

Its odd that when places like HN or Reddit ask for favourite podcasts the amazing resources of BBC radio (that precede all modern internet podcasts and the best

Its odd that when places like HN or Reddit ask for favourite podcasts the amazing resources of BBC radio (that precede all modern internet podcasts and the best of which still wipe the floor with most of them) are often forgotten. In Our Time represents the best of the form, and the BBC, and that's significantly down to the excellence of Bragg. The archive (you may need a VPN outside the UK): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/episodes/player https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/episodes/player Some curated lists: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2Dw1c7rxs6DmyK0pMRwpMq1/archive https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2Dw1c7rxs6DmyK0pMR...

arethuza 1y ago
I always thought it was appropriate that the UK nuclear deterrence fleet apparently would check for Radio 4 still being broadcast to check whether civilisation as we know it (at least in these damp isles) has ended. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort
- dghf 1y ago
  I believe that to be precise they check for the Today programme, the Radio 4 current-affairs slot where Cabinet ministers go to get monstered.
  - sherr 1y ago
    The Today program is a shadow of its former self I think, as is a lot of BBC News today.
    - flir 1y ago
      There was a long history of the PM listening to it, and it set the agenda for the day. At some point after Thatcher that stopped happening (Blair, maybe? Definitely by Cameron), and it became a lot less important to politicos to appear on it. But yes, the BBC was always the voice of the Establishment (which is fine) but it's definitely been neutered. You can see it in the documentary output very clearly.
    - frereubu 1y ago
      Yes, feels like it's just a grandstanding format for both presenter and interviewees with very little meaningful content.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      Laura Keunsburg completely neutered the BBC.
      - walthamstow 1y ago
        Robbie Gibb is the name you're looking for. He ran BBC Politics on TV for over a decade including before and after the referendum, then went to work for Teresa May in No10.
        AlecSchueler 1y ago
        No, Laura Keunsburg was the name I was looking for, that's why I used it. You seem to suggest I'm confused about this and I would appreciate if you could explain why.
        butlike 1y ago
        I think they were agreeing with you in point of "the BBC has been neutered," and also adding to the conversation like "Oh Laura is probably bad, but have you heard of Robbie Gibb?!" It really didn't read to me like they wanted to completely invalidate your statement.
  - arethuza 1y ago
    So we need to make sure that we don't get nuked on a Sunday! [I mean what kind of monster would do that]
    - netsharc 1y ago
      Hah, reminds me of the joke in Asterix in Britain, where the Brits would stop fighting at 5 o'clock: https://youtu.be/asBo3JUWwDU?t=468 https://youtu.be/asBo3JUWwDU?t=468 , to drink hot water (because they hadn't discovered tea yet).
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
calpaterson 1y ago
> the amazing resources of BBC radio (that precede all modern internet podcasts and the best of which still wipe the floor with most of them) are often forgotten I don't know, there are some definite bright spots like IOT but the typical output of Radio 4 is definitely not massively in advance of the big podcasts. The Rest Is History/Politics are clearly hugely popular inside the UK and basically constitute "the competition" for your average R4 listener. I actually think that the podcast model is a big threat for traditional radio. Podcasts are much more lucrative for the makers, the reach is as-big (or bigger) and you don't have to negotiate with the government like R4 does.
- secondcoming 1y ago
  I was a massive fan of TRIP at the start but these days I find it tedious to listen to sometimes.
  - Thaliana 1y ago
    The News Agents has almost entirely replaced TRIP for me. I still like some of their Leading interviews but TRIP itself I've gone right off.
    - secondcoming 1y ago
      I've heard about The News Agents before but never really checked it out. I fear Emily Maitlis will annoy me more than Alistair Darling does though. Can't win. There's always The Rest Is History for neutral interesting information!
  - adammarples 1y ago
    TRIP was formed in the turbulence of the crashing conservative governerment and it was a breath of fresh air to have people close to the inside who were commenting on unfolding events nearly daily while also saying all the things that traditional media didn't. I looked forward to TRIP every time Boris blundered so that I could hear the guys disect it with a few personal anecdotes thrown in from their time in power. Now, there's nothing much new about hearing Alasdair talk about Tony Blair again and I don't think the centrist dad approach has anything much to say about Kier Starmer's government.
stevage 1y ago
> Its odd that ...the amazing resources of BBC radio ... are often forgotten. > you may need a VPN outside the UK Not that odd, really.
- hardlianotion 1y ago
  That's a very recent feature. I agree it was a foolish decision to require it.
- adammarples 1y ago
  You may need a VPN inside the UK nowadays...
- rafram 1y ago
  You can listen to In Our Time on every podcast app from anywhere in the world, just like any other podcast.
flir 1y ago
I do feel that IOT would benefit from being longer - it often feels rushed. Podcasts excel at "deep dives" in a way that radio is barred from doing: a podcaster can say "I think I'm gonna do 30 hours on George Jones this year" (real example), and nobody can stop them. IOT's format has a lot of statements, but not many questions. Bragg doesn't often say "hold on, what are the consequences of that?" (unless it's a prepared question designed to move us through the biography). Ironically, this lack of curiosity gets worse on subjects he understands well (the arts). The unscripted chat afterwards is often the best bit. I could do with 10 minutes of on-script introduction and 50 minutes of experts discussing something they're passionate about.
- Fluorescence 1y ago
  The time pressure is probably more important than you realise. The guests are often pretty eminent academics, feted in their field and used to being indulged. There have been some I know that very much enjoy the sound of their own voice as they tediously ramble for hours, bending any topic to their own pet themes, with colleagues and students obediently hanging on their words. Melvyn has the stature to get testy "Enough about his wife, you still haven't answered the question, get on with it!" and the Oxford emeritus professor complies. The after show chat works because it's post-time-crunch. It's pressure release and reflection. If you do recruitment this is something to learn. You will have a much more valuable interaction after you have scraped off interviewee armour.
  - samastur 1y ago
    I generally agree with you and the "short" format is what makes it successful, but Melvyn said himself that they choose teaching professors because they would know how to explain subject clearly and after almost two decades of listening I'd say it has mostly worked.
    - Fluorescence 1y ago
      > they choose teaching professors because they would know how to explain subject clearly Hmm! The majority of academics in the UK teach... most of them reluctantly and badly because it's mandatory for their research contract! Those that revel in it are used to monologuing extemporanously for hours every day in the lecture hall and supervision without interuption. It's quite far from a snappy conversational media performer.
physicsguy 1y ago
I'm British and live in the UK so BBC is a big part of my radio listening anyway, but I agree, the quality both in terms of content and recording quality is largely miles ahead of most podcasts. Excluding things like political things which wouldn't land the same to international listeners, my favourites are: The Kitchen Cabinet You're Dead To Me Crowdscience Inside Science Just a Minute The Unbelievable Truth Nature Table Take Four Books Witness History Last Word Gardener's Question Time A Good Read (I wrote a blog post a while ago about scraping the books using LLMs to extract from the text of the descriptions: https://rpep.dev/posts/a-good-read-extracting-books-with-llms/ https://rpep.dev/posts/a-good-read-extracting-books-with-llm...)
- zapzupnz 1y ago
  Your list comes up as a single, comma-less paragraph. Add empty lines between each item just like this

arethuza 1y ago

I always thought it was appropriate that the UK nuclear deterrence fleet apparently would check for Radio 4 still being broadcast to check whether civilisation as we know it (at least in these damp isles) has ended. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort

dghf 1y ago
I believe that to be precise they check for the Today programme, the Radio 4 current-affairs slot where Cabinet ministers go to get monstered.
- sherr 1y ago
  The Today program is a shadow of its former self I think, as is a lot of BBC News today.
  - flir 1y ago
    There was a long history of the PM listening to it, and it set the agenda for the day. At some point after Thatcher that stopped happening (Blair, maybe? Definitely by Cameron), and it became a lot less important to politicos to appear on it. But yes, the BBC was always the voice of the Establishment (which is fine) but it's definitely been neutered. You can see it in the documentary output very clearly.
  - frereubu 1y ago
    Yes, feels like it's just a grandstanding format for both presenter and interviewees with very little meaningful content.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    Laura Keunsburg completely neutered the BBC.
    - walthamstow 1y ago
      Robbie Gibb is the name you're looking for. He ran BBC Politics on TV for over a decade including before and after the referendum, then went to work for Teresa May in No10.
      - AlecSchueler 1y ago
        No, Laura Keunsburg was the name I was looking for, that's why I used it. You seem to suggest I'm confused about this and I would appreciate if you could explain why.
        butlike 1y ago
        I think they were agreeing with you in point of "the BBC has been neutered," and also adding to the conversation like "Oh Laura is probably bad, but have you heard of Robbie Gibb?!" It really didn't read to me like they wanted to completely invalidate your statement.
- arethuza 1y ago
  So we need to make sure that we don't get nuked on a Sunday! [I mean what kind of monster would do that]
  - netsharc 1y ago
    Hah, reminds me of the joke in Asterix in Britain, where the Brits would stop fighting at 5 o'clock: https://youtu.be/asBo3JUWwDU?t=468 https://youtu.be/asBo3JUWwDU?t=468 , to drink hot water (because they hadn't discovered tea yet).
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

calpaterson 1y ago

> the amazing resources of BBC radio (that precede all modern internet podcasts and the best of which still wipe the floor with most of them) are often forgotten I don't know, there are some definite bright spots like IOT but the typical output of Radio 4 is definitely not massively in advance of the big podcasts. The Rest Is History/Politics are clearly hugely popular inside the UK and basically constitute "the competition" for your average R4 listener. I actually think that the podcast model is a big threat for traditional radio. Podcasts are much more lucrative for the makers, the reach is as-big (or bigger) and you don't have to negotiate with the government like R4 does.

secondcoming 1y ago
I was a massive fan of TRIP at the start but these days I find it tedious to listen to sometimes.
- Thaliana 1y ago
  The News Agents has almost entirely replaced TRIP for me. I still like some of their Leading interviews but TRIP itself I've gone right off.
  - secondcoming 1y ago
    I've heard about The News Agents before but never really checked it out. I fear Emily Maitlis will annoy me more than Alistair Darling does though. Can't win. There's always The Rest Is History for neutral interesting information!
- adammarples 1y ago
  TRIP was formed in the turbulence of the crashing conservative governerment and it was a breath of fresh air to have people close to the inside who were commenting on unfolding events nearly daily while also saying all the things that traditional media didn't. I looked forward to TRIP every time Boris blundered so that I could hear the guys disect it with a few personal anecdotes thrown in from their time in power. Now, there's nothing much new about hearing Alasdair talk about Tony Blair again and I don't think the centrist dad approach has anything much to say about Kier Starmer's government.

stevage 1y ago

> Its odd that ...the amazing resources of BBC radio ... are often forgotten. > you may need a VPN outside the UK Not that odd, really.

hardlianotion 1y ago
That's a very recent feature. I agree it was a foolish decision to require it.
adammarples 1y ago
You may need a VPN inside the UK nowadays...
rafram 1y ago
You can listen to In Our Time on every podcast app from anywhere in the world, just like any other podcast.

flir 1y ago

I do feel that IOT would benefit from being longer - it often feels rushed. Podcasts excel at "deep dives" in a way that radio is barred from doing: a podcaster can say "I think I'm gonna do 30 hours on George Jones this year" (real example), and nobody can stop them. IOT's format has a lot of statements, but not many questions. Bragg doesn't often say "hold on, what are the consequences of that?" (unless it's a prepared question designed to move us through the biography). Ironically, this lack of curiosity gets worse on subjects he understands well (the arts). The unscripted chat afterwards is often the best bit. I could do with 10 minutes of on-script introduction and 50 minutes of experts discussing something they're passionate about.

Fluorescence 1y ago
The time pressure is probably more important than you realise. The guests are often pretty eminent academics, feted in their field and used to being indulged. There have been some I know that very much enjoy the sound of their own voice as they tediously ramble for hours, bending any topic to their own pet themes, with colleagues and students obediently hanging on their words. Melvyn has the stature to get testy "Enough about his wife, you still haven't answered the question, get on with it!" and the Oxford emeritus professor complies. The after show chat works because it's post-time-crunch. It's pressure release and reflection. If you do recruitment this is something to learn. You will have a much more valuable interaction after you have scraped off interviewee armour.
- samastur 1y ago
  I generally agree with you and the "short" format is what makes it successful, but Melvyn said himself that they choose teaching professors because they would know how to explain subject clearly and after almost two decades of listening I'd say it has mostly worked.
  - Fluorescence 1y ago
    > they choose teaching professors because they would know how to explain subject clearly Hmm! The majority of academics in the UK teach... most of them reluctantly and badly because it's mandatory for their research contract! Those that revel in it are used to monologuing extemporanously for hours every day in the lecture hall and supervision without interuption. It's quite far from a snappy conversational media performer.

physicsguy 1y ago

I'm British and live in the UK so BBC is a big part of my radio listening anyway, but I agree, the quality both in terms of content and recording quality is largely miles ahead of most podcasts. Excluding things like political things which wouldn't land the same to international listeners, my favourites are: The Kitchen Cabinet You're Dead To Me Crowdscience Inside Science Just a Minute The Unbelievable Truth Nature Table Take Four Books Witness History Last Word Gardener's Question Time A Good Read (I wrote a blog post a while ago about scraping the books using LLMs to extract from the text of the descriptions: https://rpep.dev/posts/a-good-read-extracting-books-with-llms/ https://rpep.dev/posts/a-good-read-extracting-books-with-llm...)

zapzupnz 1y ago
Your list comes up as a single, comma-less paragraph. Add empty lines between each item just like this